The present invention relates to point-of-service checkout systems and more specifically to a labor-saving consolidated checkout system.
Labor is a major cost in most point-of-service environments, such as retail and grocery establishments. In fact, labor costs may account for as much as eighty percent of the cost of completing a sale. On the other hand, equipment costs may reach only about five percent of the cost of completing a sale.
Traditionally, checkout systems have included islands for servicing one lane and one customer per island at a time. Such systems have included scanners at the end of a conveyor belt and a point-of-service terminal, separated from the scanner and located in front of the point-of-service operator. These systems have been limited to full-service operation, which requires that each island be manned by at least a point-of service operator or checkout clerk. Such systems are costly to operate and lack flexibility in that they are not equipped to handle self-service customers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,343 entitled, "Self-Service Distribution System", issued Jun. 30, 1987, to Humble et al., discloses a self-service distribution system including a plurality of separate checkout counters, each checkout counter including an optical scanner and a self-service customer display at a first end and a bagging area at the other end. Security is provided through gates between the checkout counters and tunnels over the conveyor belts. A retail terminal and a single store employee are located separately from the checkout counters and provide payment assistance for four checkout lanes.
The system disclosed by Humble et al. suffers from the disadvantage that it is suited for only self-service customers. The point-of-service scanner is located on the opposite side of the gate from the store associate. Also, the store associate is located at a retail terminal away from the bagging end of the checkout lane. The system of Humble et al. also suffers from the problem that the checkout lanes are divided, and spread apart, giving the store associate problems with security.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a labor-saving checkout system which is suitable for self-service as well as store-assisted operation, and which includes an integral point-of-service device where all elements of the checkout process may be completed.